Ford Canada Factory....

[Steve Guthrie]

Hi there

Now this is interesting.

According to the caption, this is shows a workman installing the wheel and tire on a heavy wrecker at the Ford Plant, July 2 1942.

A couple of neat things:

Notice the cab exterior and wheel painted Light Stone, but everthing else painted No.2 Brown.

There is a tag marked 'wrecker' attached to the grille.

Note how the windshield wipers are used to hold the hood open.

Steve

[Keith Webb]

I also note the sand pattern tyre - bit hard to see but this might be an F60H. The next truck in the line is a "Jailbar" Ford, also in Light Stone.

What a great find.

More pics please!

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

Where in heck did that photo come from????? Note the WRM-XXXX serial, which indicates that it's one in the same series as some in the Ottawa Archives that I have pulled out for my Southampton Plant thesis. If I knew the source of the "WRM" prefix photos I might be able to find more stills taken from the official movie shot in Southampton in October 1940. You have all seen some more stills in Dr Gregg's book that has some shots of Southampton operations [i.e. C30S or was it then just C.30?] G/S/ trucks being assembled.

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

If this is a F60H then it is definitely not a Canadian order as the DND had cancelled all orders for F60H chassis before # 13 Cabs had been introduced. I cannot reconcile it with a British order either, and so my betting is that this was an Indian Army order if it indeed is a F60H of course!

[servicepub (RIP)]

The WRM, WRC, WRB and others identify this photo as being from the National Film Board, Stills Collection. The Cdn National Archives holds most of these but the Finding Aid is less than ideal.
Dave, fly over to Ottawa, stay at my place, and research your heart away. We'll get Steve to drive down and there are a few other 'regulars' lurking in the background who always make themselves available when it's pub time (Alex, Marc, Don, et al)
Clive

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

Clive, I have tried to access the CNA index several times and I ended up with three photos of the Southampton CMD, using the WRM iprefix, plus the flying FGT.

I had three bottles of Stella Artois this afternoon at a Pizza Hut...it's brewed in Luton, near the old Vauxhall Plant, by Interbrew Limited.

[servicepub (RIP)]

Dave,
The problem with distance research, especially with the Cdn National Archives, is that the good stuff hasn't been found yet.
The Nat'l Film Board stills can all be viewed as contact prints gklued to a caption card. This is the way they were catalogued by the NFB. When the turned over their collection to the Archives it remained so. Only when a researcher requests that one of these old stills is reproduced by the Archives is it then given a "PA" number. Six to 12 months later it may make it onto the on-line data-base.
This means that only photos which may already have appeared in print can be found on their web-site and the 95% which has never been seen by the public remains dormant.
I'm serious, jump onto a plane and come over. Rations & quarters are taken care of, all you need is some drinking money. Plan on a week.

[Keith Webb]

This matches in terms of the different cab colour - even the left tyre is the same type although the right one is a standard pattern.

On the other hand, the factory practice of different chassis and cab colours extended to other models such as this F60L.



I do think you're onto something regarding the Indian Army orders though. Pity there isn't an online archive of their photographs!

[Steve Guthrie]

Hello there...

Here's the link to the digital photo collection at the NAC

http://www.archives.ca/02/02011502_e.htm

Just enter your topic (truck or Ford or General Motors), tic the 'digital' box and you're in.

David, Clive is right.

You've really got to buzz over, settle in and plow through the archives.

It's a little like the internet, though. There is so much interesting stuff available you have to guard against getting sidetracked.

Steve

[Steve Guthrie]

Hi there

Hmmm, that link doesnt want to work.

Sorry about that.

go to

www.archives.ca

then go to Archivianet

then click on Photographs



Steve

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

Right, that's convinced me! Juliette, SHE WHO MUST BE OBEYED, has said that she wants to come over already..her dad's brother was a Professor of Mathematics at Ottawa, and he and his wife had five children. Her uncle is in his eighties now, and her aunt has just decided to remarry after many years of divorce. J has not seen her cousins for years. Her dad is in Ottawa at the moment with his partner, a widow of even age, and they are seeing J's uncle. Fred was a RAFVR pilot during the war and trained at various bases around Canada. I mentioned before that he went to Coastal Command on Catalinas but when twin-training on an Anson spotted a U-boat and this led to a big sub-hunt when they got back as it was one that the RCAF were after.

I have of course tried the NFB archives by mail and nothing was revealed as to the existence of the movie fim. The photos I have secured were just prints and negs had to be made of them...one is now an electronic thumbnail on the computerised index when you access it. It's of C30 chassis being assembled in October 1940. I just wish that we could find the others in the series and also the movie..I have asked the CNA people in the past to look into it for me and scanned the index and archives remotely.


The 1942 Model F60H must be an Indian Army order I think...the photo I have of a F60H # 13 Can Wrecker in what appears to be North Africa has a canvas roof..Australian? It also has standard type tyres.

[Alex van de Wetering]

Hi Guys,

I just stumbled upon this older message. Some of you may know that I am building a scale model of the Ford F60H wrecker. (I posted a picture on the forum some time ago) Allthough I haven't had much time lately to continue the model, my search for info continues. That's why I was happy to see a new picture (for me) of the F60H wrecker. But I am a little disappointed by the message that David posted saying that Canada never purchased the Ford F60 H cab 13 wrecker, because I wanted to build the model in a canadian registration for North-West Europe. So a little disappointing!!! I still don't know what I am going to do right now.......an Indian registration on my model??????

But so much for the emotions. Couldn't it be that the paint-scheme above is just for the black and white factory-picture??? Just a thought.....
I know some dutch locomotive factories used this technique. When a new locomotive model was introduced they used to paint it in grey and black, instead of the normal dark green and black which was normal when the locomotives were delivered to the client. That way the contrast on the picture was better, which resulted in more orders (?)

Alex

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

Yes, the papers show that the Ford F60H was not liked at all in the Department of National Defence, and they thought it underpowered and not capable either. Fords offered the Lincoln Zephyr V-12 because it was available in quantity and in rhd form. However the Canadians canceled the F60H and none ever reached the line to receive # 13 Cabs. The call went out instead for a 6 x 6 drive truck, and whereas the first C60H had a #12 Cab, all the rest had #13 Cabs. Even then it was felt that the 270 cu in GMC was underpowered, BUT I suppose they thought that as it was being used in other trucks that it would have to do. The fact that experiments went on with the Chrysler engine show that they were never satisfied.

I have never seen this in print but I believe that the DND were saddled with the F60H because there was a perceived requirement for lwb trucks and whereas the 6 x 4 artillery tractor had become the 4 x 4 a.t. by early 1939 according to the British War Office, there were British specialist bodies that fitted Leyland, et al chassis and the DND needed a Canadian chassis to take them. In other words the DND were not pleased that they had to have this chassis layout because of British requirements and supply.

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

..the Canadians cancelled CANADIAN orders, in favour of initially US chassis but these were stop-gap whilst the C60X came on stream. This did not stop Ford producing F60H chassis for export.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally posted by Alex van de Wetering
Couldn't it be that the paint-scheme above is just for the black and white factory-picture??? Just a thought.....
I know some dutch locomotive factories used this technique. When a new locomotive model was introduced they used to paint it in grey and black, instead of the normal dark green and black which was normal when the locomotives were delivered to the client. That way the contrast on the picture was better, which resulted in more orders (?)

Nice thought, but not likely. With low-rate job-shop production like locomotives, with only a handful built per year, each rollout was probably an event in itself (just like the launching of a ship). In a mass-production environment like the Chevrolet and Ford truck factories, no time could be wasted at the end of the line when another truck rolled off it (let alone the extra paint required). I don't even think this was done for "official portrait" pictures.

[Snowtractor]

In a factory with all the "modern" equipment and power tools of the period and yet look at the line worker's right knee..either a patch or extra layer to protect the knee that gets all the work. Excellent photo of both vehicle and of the job no pretty boy model here.
Sean